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Any creature forced into one of the four spiked support columns is dealt 1d10 points of damage from the protruding spikes. Ouch.
We're also changing things up for this fight. The PCs have fought dozens of goblins by now, and they are no doubt becoming somewhat predictable. For this final battle, I've taken some of the recently released kobold monsters and retooled them to look like goblins. I suggest the following encounter for a party of five adventurers:
- Warchief Ripnugget
- Stickfoot, Giant Gecko
- 2 Goblin Pikers (as Kobold Piker with goblin racial trait, see Dragon #364)
- 4 Goblin Cutters
Make heavy, effective use of the pikers' ability to ready attacks with a bonus by positioning them near Ripnugget, then using Stickfoot to drag an unfortunate (and now prone) adventurer into triggering their melee attacks. The cutters can run interference, but don't expect them to last long with the party pulling out daily powers for what should clearly be a climactic fight. When Ripnugget becomes bloodied, he uses his Alchemical Juggernaut ability, pulling out one of Gogmurt's most powerful alchemical concoctions and throwing it to the ground, inhaling the billowing green smoke.
Ripnugget carries treasure parcel 1, and treasure parcel 6 can be found either here or in Ripnugget's room (whichever you feel is appropriate).
Stat block:
10 comments:
The new encounters look great. My players have been loving the stuff you've done so far, so I look forward to running this on Friday.
Did you decide to do away with the trap on the treasure chest, or have you just not converted it yet?
Thanks Scott!
The trap is there. Tetanus needs to be redesigned to a 4th Edition disease track, and I'm still coming up with a good format to place that in before uploading it. It'll probably go up when I update the blog with everything my party ran through last night (Bruthazmus and the goblin wives, and the temple hounds).
Now that you bring it up, though, this is a good example of something from 3.5 adventures that runs contrary to 4th Edition design philosophy. Static hit-or-miss traps like the rusty blade on the chest are not as fun as dynamic, involved traps that can get the whole party in on the action instead of simply cheering the party rogue on.
The only reason I'm considering keeping the trap as is, is because the disease element of the trap allows another party member trained in the Heal skill to participate in the challenge (albeit, some time after the fact).
I'd love to hear suggestions on ways to make this trap more fun for the party to handle.
I'm not sure how to make a trap like that any better. When I saw it in the adventure I thought about the same things you just mentioned. It seems that traps in 4e work a lot better when they're part of a larger encounter (like the bridge battle) than they do on their own. The trap in the hall before the party reaches Nualia, for example, seems like it would be kind of out of place in a 4e adventure. In a case like with the bridge, I think combining it with a combat adventure was an excellent idea, but its hard to do with a trap that's as isolated as the Slasher.
As far as Tetanus goes, I have zero experience with D&D diseases, but I saw another converter use a Shakes disease with lowered DCs as a stand in (http://okayyourturn.yuku.com/topic/16055/t/-4E-Pathfinder-Rise-of-the-Runelords-Campaign-Journal.html).
Since you mentioned it, can you drop any hints about your Bruthazmus battle?. I don't mean to rush you or nag, but I think my group may reach that battle in this next session and, as I said, they've loved your work so far. My idea was something like Bruthazmus (Bugbear Warrior with a ranger template added on) + 4 wives (blackblades) in the Feast Hall with Orik (human mercenary) entering from his room in the third round. Again, sorry to be a pest, and thanks for the material!
I've actually already run the Bruthazmus fight, and it ended up being a lot of fun. I'll post the actual conversions this weekend, but I'll give you the short version.
Bruthazmus was made a solo monster based on the Bugbear Shadow Walker from the Bloodghost Syndicate article from Dragon #366. Despite his character focus in the original adventure as a ranged fighter, that makes no tactical sense in the relatively small (though slightly larger than the original) harem room. You should feel free to portray him as a ranger-type, with a longbow strapped to his back, but he would be unwise to pull it out in combat.
The goblin wives are represented as a modified Kobold Horde (goblin racial traits instead of kobold racial traits), which allows them to appear numerous while acting as a single entity and not cluttering up combat.
The full write-up will be up soon.
Sounds awesome! My group ended moving slower than I thought, but I'm looking forward to this battle next week. Thanks!
Any updates coming soon?
Yes, in fact.
I'd like to apologize to everyone following this blog for being so lax in updates over the past month. I've been extremely heavily involved in a political campaign and simply have not had the time to invest in posting updates. I've still been running my game, and still been converting, but none of that has made it online.
Thankfully, that ordeal is now over and I have few commitments over the next couple of months. I also have a blessedly free weekend, so the last three weeks' worth of updates will make it up tonight and tomorrow. For those following along, my players just stumbled into Malfeshnekor's chamber. Burnt Offerings will be completely converted in a couple of weeks. I'm honestly kind of surprised that I've managed to get through it.
After that, it's on to The Skinsaw Murders. My hard copy is being processed as I write.
That stat block for Ripnugget doesn't make a lot of sense. "Tiny immortal humaniod (devil)"???
Two powers are recharge, but with no numbers.
He speaks Draconic instead of Goblin??
These are problems that cropped up while I was transferring the stat blocks over to the new format. I had edited Erylium's stat block just prior to doing Ripnugget's, and I neglected to change a number of things. I was made aware of this already by someone looking at the PDF. Thanks for keeping an eye open, though!
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